Meet Liquitex resident Daniel Tagbo, a Brooklyn-based multi-genre creative working across painting, film, music and mentorship. Born in Arkansas and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, by Nigerian parents, Daniel moved to New York for college, where he planned to pursue music, but ended up majoring in fashion design. A gallery visit in Nigeria in his sophomore year was the life-changing spark that set him on his path. Something clicked, and he immediately switched his minor to fine art.  

After graduating in 2025, Daniel returned to a focus on painting and drawing, with a refined sense of line, composition, color, enhanced by his time spent working in fashion. His fluid, expressive style can be described as figurative surrealism, and his work explores themes of searching for fulfilment, journey and the American Dream. Daniel frequently draws on mythology, using the Minotaur as a metaphor for obstacles encountered in the pursuit of success and creative contentment, He thinks of collections as albums and each painting as a song. J. Cole’s approach to storytelling through music is what he aspires to do through art. He sees drawing is the purest form of expression and Picasso’s paper works, and Nigerian Modernism were ever present inspiration sources in the Liquitex studio.

“I create work that speaks to the elements of life unable to be described by words or explained by reason. My work synthesizes unconscious and conscious streams of thought, using symbolism, spontaneity, and human expressionism, to reimagine stories and experiences from my personal life, and create images that are complex deconstructions of our world.”

In the spirit of our Just Imagine theme, Daniel approached the residency with signature spontaneity. Starting his morning ‘warm-ups’, using pencil on an easel-mounted surface, he worked on “line control”, then built intuitively, with no real studies or plan. Daniel experimented with a range of Liquitex media in the studio, enjoying drawing and painting with Liquitex Acrylic Markers to define form, line and build color. “I just focus and take my time so I can work through each passage of the story”. He discovers meaning, exploring new ideas as the work takes him, and the body of work started in the Liquitex residency is now complete, titled ‘Almost’. 

See more of Daniel's work on his profile and on TikTok and Instagram.